Monday, September 26, 2011

Ethiopians in the US Consider Investing in their homeland

Ethiopians living in the United States are going to discuss the existing investment opportunities in Ethiopia at a conference to be held in Washington DC.

The conference, under the theme "Collaborative Investing by the Diaspora", is scheduled to take place on Saturday October 8 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

The conference is a half a day U.S. private-sector-led initiative. The organisers expect about 300 people to attend the meeting.

The conference will be opened with a keynote speech by Zemedeneh Negatu, one of the successful Ethiopian-American business executives now working in Africa.

The keynote speech will be followed by interactive discussions with the audience regarding the opportunities and investment vehicles the diaspora can use to collaboratively invest in various sectors including healthcare, agro-industry, real estate, manufacturing, mining, infrastructure and the service industry.

The conference will also adress other issues like the growing importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ethiopia's economy, especially from India, China and other emerging economies and the United States and how the diaspora can benefit from it.

Ethiopians living in the United States remitted about one billion dollars in 2010 to their families and friends back home, mostly to cover daily expenditures.

By contrast, their investment remittances were relatively smaller than the expenditure remittances. The amount of FDI invested by Ethiopian-Americans in the past ten years is estimated at 250 million dollars